Friday Photography

This weeks post takes a very brief look at the importance of a photographer knowing their own artistic tastes and comfort level with abstraction/realism

This weeks assignment is Abstraction. (more explanation and thoughts down below)

Please post any photos, comment about anything or ask any questions about photography (If I don’t know the answer someone here probably will)- Please treat this as a photography (and anything else for that matter) open thread.

Know What You Like

Photographers tend to be an opinionated bunch. Arguments about equipment and manufacturers, can be every bit as heated as those about candidates (and even policy on occasions) on political forums. There are whole websites dedicated to such compelling issues whether this lens is fractionally sharper than that lens or if camera A’s high iso performance tests better at a range the human eye will never perceive than B’s etc. My opinion on all equipment based opining is that it is a complete waste of time and pixels as just about all of today’s equipment is pretty good and will get the job done. Nikon vs Canon/ Apple vs PC is all just Pepsi vs Coke. Anyway, more to the point, this piece is not about that type of opining but rather something much more interesting (at least to me).

In my experience photographers fall broadly into two categories, those who are more comfortable with the literal and those who are home in the abstract. This requires some explanation best described by approach. A literal photographer’s philosophy is based around finding a beautiful thing or person, placing them in, or waiting for beautiful light, and shooting the scene from the most beautiful angle. The abstract approach is completely different. Here the photographer thinks in terms of lights and darks, of lines and shapes - the object or subject is secondary.

Of course this is simplistic and most photographers fall somewhere on the continuum, the line that goes from 100% representational to 100% abstract. I suspect that the best photographers can work comfortably at different points on the line, depending upon what any given situation demands. There are photographers who will remove anything from a photograph that is not considered aesthetically pleasing because they see it as clutter and I know photographers who make a living photographing things that society deems ugly.

All approaches are equally valid. They key thing is the photographers awareness of their own nature and temperament and for said photographer not to regard other approaches than their own as inferior. I enjoy working in the abstract, not just with regard to photography but to life in general. One of my my greatest pleasure, in both cases, comes from finding beauty in the ordinary. The images used to illustrate this post are some of my attempts. They vary from being totally abstract, i.e. having no recognizable objects or subjects to having something recognizable in them The thing that they have in common is that the subject is not the main thing about the photograph.

So, how does a person know whether they would be happier working representationally, abstractly or somewhere in-between? Individual taste is probably the best guide - just look at what is on the walls. Someone who hangs reproductions by Mondrian or Pollock would probably do well to take an abstract approach to photography. The opposite applies to a person who chooses paintings by say, Constable or Ralph Goings. This may sound obvious but many photographers spend a long time shooting stuff that they are not that keen on because it’s what other photographers do.

As mentioned in the introduction, photographers tend to be opinionated and while this is generally a good thing (all of my favorite photographers hold or held very strong opinions on just about everything to do with the subject) it can also be a disadvantage. I have known both subject oriented photographers who disparage anything that goes beyond being an accurate ‘slice of reality’ and fine arts photographers who regard representational photographers as being machine operators/technicians. Fortunately most of us are more reasonable than this and see value in something even if it doesn’t reflect our own tastes.

Assignments

Last weeks Assignment - People

Photographs and comments

This weeks assignment - Abstraction

The idea here is to produce a photograph where the physical subject is relatively unimportant.
Photographs can be color, black and white, edited or straight out of the camera.
Think of this as an exercise in composition rather than an exercise in capturing beauty.
Think in terms of dark/light, shape, line, etc.
Anything can be the subject of an abstract photograph - even people.

Where to post images

I'll put up a new thread tomorrow, around noon ET, specifically for the uploading of photos relating to the assignment. If you want to post them here and/or on tomorrow's thread that is fine. Also feel free to post any other images of anything on either today's or tomorrow's threads. The assignments are purely optional - just something to get the creative juices flowing!

Finally

Abstract photography, sometimes called non-objective, experimental, conceptual or concrete photography, is a means of depicting a visual image that does not have an immediate association with the object world and that has been created through the use of photographic equipment, processes or materials. An abstract photograph may isolate a fragment of a natural scene in order to remove its inherent context from the viewer, it may be purposely staged to create a seemingly unreal appearance from real objects, or it may involve the use of color, light, shadow, texture, shape and/or form to convey a feeling, sensation or impression. The image may be produced using traditional photographic equipment like a camera, darkroom or computer, or it may be created without using a camera by directly manipulating film, paper or other photographic media, including digital presentations.

- Wikipedia: Abstract Photography.

This is an open thread so have at it. Post photos, questions, thoughts etc. - anything whatsoever to do with photography or anything at all for that matter.